What makes a good Bond villain? This is a question the JBIFC has posed on a number of occasions before and there are numerous candidates. The early 007 films were adept at putting Ian Fleming’s villainous and highly memorable creations on screen – Julius No, Rosa Klebb, ‘Red’ Grant, Auric Goldfinger and so on – and these were people we loved to hate (so to speak). In Thunderball, Emilio Largo, SP.E.C.T.R.E No.2 in Blofeld’s crime syndicate, as played by Italian actor Adolfo Celi, was another great addition to the Bond Baddie Hall of Infamy.
Next year, 2025, will mark the 60th Anniversary of Thunderball (1965), Sean Connery’s fourth James Bond movie, a film which arguably took ‘Bondmania’ and the 007 franchise’s huge popularity with cinemagoers to new and dizzying heights in the mid-1960s.
In his original novel, which was based on a screen treatment first put together by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham, the 007 creator described Emilio Largo as a ‘ruthless Neapolitan black marketeer and fence’ who had moved on to riskier and more profitable schemes within the international crime scene. In a sense, he was a perfect recruit for Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s Special Executive for Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (a black eye-patch gave him a certain pirate-style ruthless look), and he was put in charge of an extortion scheme involving stolen NATO nuclear weapons. Largo, in his own way, was a well-dressed but amoral Mafia-style operator, with a definate air of menace about him, who placed great emphasis on complete loyalty on the part of his operatives and took sadistic pleasure in feeding any of them who displeased him to the sharks. He was also prepared to engage in torture, including of his mistress, Domino.
Largo through the Lens
The role of Largo, a man who was posing as a millionaire playboy in Nassau and owned a huge hydrofoil luxury yacht, the Disco Volante (‘Flying Saucer‘ in English), was a central figure in the film’s storyline (Blofeld, his boss, remained in the shadows). The part was given to Sicilian-born character actor Adolfo Celi (1922-1986). Celi was a very talented individual, who had directed three movies in the 1950s and during his overall career appeared in just under 100 films. It is thought that he first came to the attention of the Bond producers when Celi played the Fascist Commandant of a POW camp in the Frank Sinatra war movie Von Ryan’s Express (1965).
Although he was fluent in several languages, including English, Celi had quite a strong accent in real life, and so the producers decided it was better to have most of his lines (though not all) dubbed by the man who became their usual voice-dubber of choice, Robert Reitty. However, Celi appeared to relish the role and aquitted himself admirably. Interestingly, he later revealed that, after completing Von Ryan’s Express, he had happened to be passing through New York on his way to fly to Spain to make another movie, and had purchased Ian Fleming’s novel Thunderball to read on the plane. He remembered thinking at the time how it would be nice to play the role of Largo. When he was offered the role, he was very happy to be cast as Largo as, in a sense, he was already familiar with the character. It shows. Celi captured the infamous Fleming feel for sadism: at one point towards the end of the movie, Largo tortures Domino with ice cubes and a cigar. He is also clearly a big fan of sharks!
While he had some classic scenes opposite Sean Connery’s Bond, Celi was well aware that, in real life, he could not match some of the fictional Largo’s talents. In the Nassau Casino scene, for example, where Largo is engaged in a tense game of cards by 007, Celi said he had no personal experience of playing cards in real life, and he had to be closely directed from beginning to end in that particular sequence by director Terence Young. His deadpan face in the sequence was apparently due to Celi’s real-life lack of interest in the card game. Celi said that, for years afterwards, whenever he went into a Casino, everybody assumed he would be a master card-player, but soon realised he was not.
We are first introduced to Largo when he emerges from a car in a street in Paris, and enters SP.E.C.T.R.E’s secret HQ, which hides behind a cover organisation, the International Brotherhood for the Assistance of Stateless Persons. It is here that Largo joins a meeting of the Board of SP.E.C.T.R.E, where various members are invited to report on the results of their latest crime and the money they have exorted or stolen, listened to by the hidden and menacing figure of Blofeld. Largo is invited to explain his plan to have a bribed NATO pilot, Derval, help hijack the two nuclear bombs from an RAF Vulcan bomber.
Largo’s Lair
There were some classic moments in the film involving Bond’s determination to bring down Largo’s nefarious nuclear blackmail scheme. A key and very tense sequence in Thunderball involved James Bond entering Largo’s heavily-guarded luxury residence by stealth at night. Interestingly, Palmyra, Emilio Largo’s large mansion in Nassau, was in real life the summer home and estate of millionaire Nicholas Sullivan and his family, who lived in Philadelphia, USA. Originally spotted by Ken Adam from the air during an early location recce, the set designer and his Thunderball location scouts had been very impressed with the house and its surroundings, especially its two swimming pools, and thought it ideal for the opulent waterfront HQ and estate of SP.E.C.T.R.E.’s evil No.2. During the main location filming, the crew, helped by the Miami Seaquarium, turned the large swimming pools at the residence into a tank for Largo’s sharks, filling the water with three huge tiger sharks.
A naturally reluctant Sean Connery bravely agreed to get into the water and swim briefly with the sharks, which were not drugged. Trained experts were on hand to protect Sean in case there was any trouble from the sharks, and some Plexiglass sheeting was also utilised for added safety. In the event, the sharks proved very sluggish, ignoring Connery and just swimming around, much to his relief! The rest of the sequence was completed using Connery’s swimming double. Celi said he could see the look of relief on Sean’s face when that sequence was over and done with.
However, Celi’s friendship with Sean Connery was put to the test when he later appeared in an Italian-made spoof of the Bond movies, Operation Kid Brother (1967), which starred Sean’s brother, Neil Connery. Celi joined some other Bond stars in the movie, including Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell, and Sean Connery was said to be ‘furious’ with the project.
Another Way to Try
Adolfo Celi’s interpretation of Largo has, of course, gone down in Bond history and his villain has become part of cinema culture, often lovingly lampooned by comedians. Robert Wagner’s role as Dr. Evil’s eyepatch-wearing henchman ‘Number Two’ in the three Austin Powers movies was evidently a tribute to Thunderball‘s Largo.
But there was another, more serious, big-screen interpretation of Largo, of course. This came in the non-EON rogue Bond movie Never Say Never Again (1983), starring Sean Connery again as 007, in what was – in essence – a remake of Thunderball. It was based on the ‘rights’ held by Irish producer Kevin McClory, who had originally co-produced EON’s Thunderball with Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli. McClory had agreed to wait ten years before embarking on a new Bond project, and by the mid-1970s had put his plans into action securing the writing services of none other than Sean Connery. He eventually even persuaded Connery to also star as Bond again, even though the Scottish star had vowed ‘never’ to do so again (hence the film’s final title).
But the project had not got off the ground until the early 1980s, and then only through a deal struck with canny Hollywood producer Jack Schwartzman. Connery was still on board and, moreover, was determined to have some quality actors in the movie. He thus pushed hard for the casting of the acclaimed Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer as Largo.
Known as Maximillian Largo, Brandauer’s villain in NSNA is arguably one of the highlights of the film. He was told by Irvin Kershner (1923-2010), the director, that the role would not be that of a ‘traditional’ stereotypical Bond villain, with an eye-patch or scar across his face, but more in the style of a modern businessman. Kershner explained: ‘I wanted the antagonist to be contemporary, and a contemporary antagonist to me was a greedy businessman’. Brandauer said he was told by Kershner that the director wanted Largo to come across as a ‘very normal person’, but also with a very unpredictable and evil side at the same time.
Brandauer was more than successful in meeting Kershner’s ambition. Indeed, his scenes with James Bond and with Domino (played by Kim Basinger) leave the cinema audience in no doubt whatsoever that Largo is both charming but psychologically unbalanced. As Kershner observed: ‘Brandauer is a great actor. I loved what he was doing with the character. He was on the verge of being a madman, but he wasn’t. And that’s what I wanted’.
Did You Know?
Reviews for Never Say Never Again more generally were quite mixed when it was released, but there were some very positive comments about the individual casting, including Klaus Maria Brandauer. A review in the USA’s Time magazine, for example, said Brandauer had played his character Largo ‘with silky, neurotic charm’.
Brandauer as Largo with Basinger as Domino in NSNA.